I WAS THINKING 4
JAHWEH ROPHI, THE LORD THE HEALER
The full Gospel includes Jesus the Healer. Without that proclamation the Gospel trumpet sounds as if it had a sticky valve. Jesus the Healer is a corner stone of Pentecostal revival, though the hardest faith challenge. Healing is where Bible teaching and teachers are put to the test. I'm asked more questions about healing than anything else. This special IWT article was suggested by people in the ministry. It is not a summary of a vast subject, but a look at the roots. Countless books on healing still find people hesitant, Healing is sometimes put aside as problematic, left to those who 'have the gift'. Basic theology is needed and this IWT piece is a contribution towards it
There are varied attitudes about healing. Healing is often taken as subsidiary side issue, or a curious possibility of faith. Some relate healing to the 'charismata', gifts. Others see it as accessory to the Gospel. More often it is thought of as resting on God's special promises. Many wanting to exercise a healing ministry think of it as an natural endowment, a healing touch or the special favour of a Divine gift. Actually no gift to heal is mentioned in the Scripture.
Healing must be seen as part of the theology of God Himself. Teaching needs to begin with teaching on God. Truth is always truth about God, never isolated. Faith expectancy must come within the revelation of what and who God is. For instance some suggest God heals or does not heal according to how it strikes Him. With what revelation of God does this accord? He has never shown Himself as temperamental.
The basis for all faith in God is that He is faithful, not volatile, fluctuating in interest. The Bible stresses that all His works are "done in truth". That applies to His work of healing.
JAHWEH ROPHI The Bible's proper name for God is JAHWEH, (the LORD.) Exodus 6:2 says "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty (el shadday) but by my name The LORD (Jahweh) I did not make myself known to them." Abraham also called God El Olam (God Everlasting). So it may be said that Moses introduced the LORD to the world during convulsion of the Exodus. Further knowledge of the Lord presently emerged, One of the first revelations was an addition to His name Jahweh = Jahweh Rophi. the LORD who heals. (Exodus 15:26)
God's name describes His character.. We know God by His name, for it describes Him. This is extremely important. His name does not denote some passing action past or future. God does nothing incidental, and nothing out of character. His name is not about what He may do, but what He is, and what He does comes only from what He is, His name, for example, the God of healing is a permanent truth, His character eternally. The Hebrew tense is timeless.
Healing is not secondary to His will. It is His will. It is His nature or instinct to heal. We see that in the first words of Genesis, where God broods over chaos. God reveals Himself by deeds, not words, and His actions tell us what He is, and what we can expect Him to be and do. Any healing is a window into the heart of God and part of His essential glory.
God has no temporary interests, no phases. God is not a process. Everything about Him subscribes to His eternal state.
God's first healing word In Exodus 15: 26 was not exclusive to Israel. It came before the tribes had any national unity. It was not exclusive to Israel, and is more than a promise. It was a declaration of what kind of God had attached Himself to them. Now obviously God is always God, the same for ever whether He appears to Israel or any other race. You are always you and I am always me wherever we go, and so is God, in all His fullness. The God Moses met and who was made flesh among us. He is not more the Jahweh Rophi for Israel and less for anybody else. What He is remains, unchangeable.
Obviously healing is for a fallen world where sickness prevails. There's no sickness in heaven to heal. Sin means rebellion "I did it my way!" – instead of God's way. That had to be when He created us in His own image with a free will. That is why Christ told us to pray "Thy will be done", because it is not being done.
However God said "If you listen to the voice of the LORD and do what is right in his eyes I will not bring on you any of the distresses of the Egyptians, for I am Jahweh Rophi."
This obliges us to face that God ties Himself to conditions for healing. His desire is within the framework He set for Himself, certain conditions. This verse, for example makes our attitude to His word a condition. That can have very broad implications indeed. A direct instance is that God laid down rules of good health which would have saved countless lives in the past. Plagues blamed on God were due to ignorance of practices of hygiene stressed in Scripture.
God does not usually override in imperious omnipotence the blunders and corruptions of our fallen world. We reap what we sow. The exception was the ministry of Christ. He healed without discrimination, but for a unique purpose, to reveal God's heart to a sinful world in an overture of active forgiveness.
He showed what the reign of God really was. Christ WAS the Kingdom and in His kingdom sickness would be unknown. I cannot heal like Jesus did because my role and mandate are totally different. He was the Son acting in the image of the Father. That is not my position. Jesus' didn't heal by faith in God as we must. He healed by His own Word of authority.
The most frequent question is why are all the sick not healed. It should be seen as part of the larger question of unanswered prayer. Exodus 15:26 is the key to that problem. What God does is according to circumstances and conditions. We don't always know what they are, and sometimes God will override all considerations. One factor hinted at here is our attitude to the Word of God. Today the atmosphere of vast moral pollutions and hostile, aggressive unbelief, nation and world-wide are prejudicial to the miraculous. It creates a dense fog of unbelief as in Nazareth where Jesus could heal only a few sick folk.
To demand that every sick person be healed is to demand prematurely the conditions of the Millennial reign of Christ. It does not accord with a sensible reading of the New Testament. One sees everyone healed in some services, but they are special moments.
Healings, in my earlier days were my problem. I knew God healed but my theology was built around what I saw, and I saw no miracles. A healing rattled the framework of my logic theory, and upset my world of precise calculation. So, I am nervous about any kind of speculative thought that limits God. His heart of love is bigger than out tape measure.
I've known for years the common doubts and hesitations but in Pentecostal circles I have never heard anyone justify their doubts from the Word of God, Usually doubt arises from a weak grip on the theology of God. Some are openly discouraging. But to weaken faith in healing is to weaken faith in all God says He will do. We have enough discouragements without anyone raising impossible questions.
I understand healing only as much as I understand God, I understand God only from my daily focus upon the Word of God. We know nothing about Him and His ways except in His Word. Experience is not a valid Bible. The Bible explains and judges experience. Jesus saves because He is the Saviour. Jesus heals because He is Jahweh Rophi.
That No. 3 'IWT' article - "Traditional or Contemporary" –
"DID I SAY THAT?"
Hearing others say what we said often surprises us. Responses to my piece "Traditional or contemporary?" (No. 3 IWT) drove me to read my own article to see if I had said things some believed I had.
I intended it to sum up the pros and cons briefly, not give vent to my own prejudices. But … I make no bones about insisting that Christian worship relate to Christ Jesus. I realise that great doctrinal and Gospel themes are not easily fitted to a single repeating musical phrase, and I do accept that melodies, tunes, belong the "traditional" school, but I still claim the Christian right to sing about the work of God in Christ. and by name, whatever the music.
However one issue arose that should be mentioned. It was said that people leaving their church because of the music, were intolerant, putting the brakes on progress. Well, those I know are not intolerant die-hards in any sense. They simply can't stomach the particular music at their church. To them it is earache, especially long sessions. The fact must be understood that we only like what we are brought up to like. Popular music is a matter of conditioning. an acquired taste. There are different brands of contemporary music and a church may adopt a form hard on the ear and as foreign to some as Chinese music. Not even all younger people want the more aggressive and clamorous performances. The under-40s took in the disco sound with their mother's milk, but half the British public was reared with an instinct for different sounds than a 2003 pop group. An aversion for contemporary pop is not intolerance. Many stay with their churches who prefer the traditional but try to get along with the new..
Part of the difficulty is that churches now use only recent songs, unrelieved. The range used to be very wide, from different periods, 18th, 19th 20th century, as any hymn book shows.
Incidentally one or two defended songs I criticised, but too long for me to reply sentence by sentence. It bothered me that such songs were defended, as if they were of ranking importance. Are they then the kind of worship songs now wanted, as standard? Brought up on better spiritual fare people are likely to shop around to find it.
One or two also stood up for songs composed in a few minutes. What did I say about them anyway? They have a niche in the temple of praise for "everything in his temple cries glory," big or small. But is the 'inspiration' of a few minutes competing with the thought and verse of greatly gifted men and women? Shouldn't we love God with all our mind? They have their merit, but can a five minute refrain really cope with the great themes of the faith? They can contribute however to the symphony of praise, but they are not a symphony themselves. God's glory and greatness is worthy of our best efforts of mind and heart.
"WORSHIP" ? LEADERS
The greatest change in our churches for a century has taken place. Here is a short survey. Actually this short article arises from a reader's perceptive question "Should worship leaders really be called music leaders?"
Music leaders or worship leaders? Obviously it depends. To lead worship needs more than the ability to play a guitar. Ideally leaders need the leadership gift, mature spiritual experience and sensitivity to the winds of the Spirit. However not every church can call on people so ideally qualified. Thankfully God uses people, even young folk, who humbly seek to promote His praise and are not out to cut a dash themselves on the platform.
Now, regarding "worship leaders". They are an innovation brought in about 20 years ago. Evangelistic meetings always had a 'song leader' for community singing. This followed the pattern of Torrey-Alexandra and George Jeffreys' campaigns. In church Gospel meetings some younger man would lead 'chorus time'.
But worship then was the essential responsibility of a pastor, as part of his ministry. He did not 'conduct' it. Nothing was programmed. Prayer and worship in some churches hardly needed a leader. It arose spontaneously from the whole congregation, the pastor only guiding it. Often for an hour or more I remember I did not have to say a word. The musicians followed the congregation. The congregation was not led by musicians.
Many pastors do keep their original privilege to lead worship themselves, usually with a guitar.
A change came when worship and Gospel meetings lost there distinctness. This came mainly when a New Zealand musician, promoted here about 1980, taught church pianists to 'lead worship' (instead of the pastor) from their keyboard and 'singing in the Spirit' was sparked off by the pianist beginning to play rolling cords. This free worship was sometimes led by the drummer.
Musicians having become the worship leaders, they also led in what was then the Gospel meeting using the same kind of songs. Piano and organ were largely replaced by guitar and percussive instruments. Evangelistic hymns were hard to play on guitars. This gradually changed the traditional Gospel meeting.
I think this is the basic change that so many feel anxious about with the loss of the revivalist atmosphere, and community singing of hymns of appeal and redemption.
That is how remember the change. Younger pastors, I imagine, fitted into the new pattern without knowing or even realising it was new or how it had come about.
However, God will have His way. People now are far more sophisticated. The Government's recent census revealed 72 per cent call themselves Christians in the UK. But folk have become wary about meetings they know very well are directly designed to convert them! But they have far less aversion for Christian worship as such, especially with warm fellowship and good preaching.
Preaching the Gospel means preaching the whole counsel of God, not a few evangelistic texts from John 3 and Romans 10. My own recent converts have come through Bible teaching. In a truly Pentecostal Bible church people will find the Lord. Every service will carry an implicit Gospel appeal. Many years ago I wrote insisting that Communion was ideal for winning men and women for Christ. At that time the Lord's table was almost a cult secret and the presence of outsiders embarrassing.
In evangelism the body of Christ breathes. It should be in the music, the worship, and the ministry. The salvation Gospel should be undiluted, leaving nobody in doubt about Christ and the need to repent and pass from death to life.
THOSE MILLENNIAL PREDICTIONS … WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
In the months leading to AD 2000 everybody, press, broadcasting, all talked as if hanging up the AD 2000 calendar would magically switch on a new spirit for a new world. But time is powerless. The third year of the third millennium and crime, terrorism and war are livelier then ever.
Church leaders set targets for 2000 which were never achieved. Religious cranks had a field day. Leader of the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star Olumba Olumba Obu 'confirmed' 72 hours of total darkness would take place and "After 1999 something spectacular will happen, end of times, last call".
Priestess Sri Patricia of the Morningland compound declared Jesus would arrive in Long Island in a UFO as big as Texas, piloted by her late husband
. The last decade was expected to end with Christ's return. During the 19th century it drove Christians to prayer for power to evangelise the whole world by AD 2000 . A respected American pastor laid down a positive date, a mistake
One popular line was that the first 2000 years was Adam to Abraham, the second 2000 years Abraham to Christ, the third would be from His first to His second advents and His 1000 years Millennial reign making up the Divine pattern of 7000.
A similar theory said man would rule for 6000 years, then Christ would rule. . Christian Fathers and scholars back to the first century held this expectation, including Irenaeus (born AD 140). Even the Jewish Talmud has been quoted "The world will stand for 6000 years, 2000 in confusion and void, 2000 with the law, and 2000 to the time of the Messiah".
There was also the Y2K panic. Computers mark years in two digits. To register 2000, they would switch off and bring civilisation to a dead stop and a world recession. The 1998 London Times issued a 1000 word warning. The USA technology Information Association described the effect as "Titanic"
In 1988 The Daily Telegraph reported a British World Bank expert warning at the Royal Geographical Society that by the year 2000 unless the world changed its industrial processes, the Earth's life-support system would breakdown.
Then came Mrs. J. Z. Knight with messages from a man who died 35,000 years ago. Hundreds went to live in north west USA to escape the predicted natural disasters to fall on cities across the continent. A wealthy owner of a chain of hamburger cafés sold up and built a pyramid shaped house ' to catch the energy of the universe.' Actress Shirley Maclaine is a follower and bought a remote farm out of the predicted danger zone.
But meanwhile some Bible wielding prophets made fame and fortune with their predictions – all unfulfilled, but AD 2000 was just too good an opportunity to miss. John Gass complained of a Christian writer selling 20 million books of predictions that failed but he goes on writing just the same. I have a few books like that as museum pieces. The damage to faith is incalculable.
The desire for Christ to return is universal and will not be disappointed. Meanwhile human prophesying has been shown ten thousand times to be one of our greatest follies. They all do it and fail, the financial and economic pundits, the social experts, the scientists. the governments, the Bible students and charismatic prophets. It is worse when Scripture is exploited. God does not divulge too much detail about the future. except about Himself, that He is faithful. We can't rely on human prophets but we can rely upon God, though the seas roar and the mountains are cast into the midst of the seas.
TYRANNY OF FASHION
The lady on TV had paid the hair dresser a small fortune to make her hair look as if he had never touched it since she got up. . Fashion!
Our changeable weather calls for daily reports, Perhaps we also need daily fashion reports?
In my more tender years many church folk dressed years behind the times under strong 'Holiness' influences. The latest style was always considered worldly.
Christians need be neither frumps nor fashion models. I want scrupulous cleanliness and an appearance which is a credit to the Lord I belong. They laugh that I wear a tie, but I look more awful without one, as most men my age. I am put off by men appearing on screen with crumpled collars and scrawny throats. Ugh!
Fashion often dictates what is plainly ridiculous, like jeans buried in soil and then ripped to render them 'mod'. Casual wear now means any old cast-offs fit for gardening or road sweeping. The worst we have can hardly be a mark of honour to our God when we attend worship. The Gadarene sat at Jesus' feet 'clothed and in his right mind' – it sounds normative? Myself I need to wear whatever will make me easier to look at!
The prevailing winds of fashion have been blowing us the wintry cult of ugliness. We men must make the worst of ourselves with shapeless oversized bags for trousers, lunatic hairstyles, body piercing, scarring with ugly tattoos, foul language like halitosis polluting the atmosphere, with revolting art exhibits and mindless scrawls destroying the meaning of art. As for high class music, as a musician I've listened and read about new works for decades, one dedicated to me and another written for me, and am convinced they are just as bad as they sound.
No fashion is de rigueur for Christians. Our job is to shape the future not preserve the old nor the status quo. A competing couple on "Who wants to be a Millionaire" had never heard of "An eye for an eye …" That degree of fashionable Bible ignorance leaves people unprotected against whatever goes. The Bible out of fashion means truth out of fashion, trampled in the street.
Children of God don't melt into the background of this world, like social wallpaper, to be like everybody else. We leave our mark in truth, wisdom, righteousness, every thought brought into captivity in the service of Christ. The future is ours in Him. We are new creatures, becoming like Christ. That sets the fashion direction for us all.
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